


they say I'm crazy, well, I'm 'bout to go dumb again

by rayguntomyhead



Category: Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: M/M, Multi, Pre-War, Starscream being so smart and yet so dumb, Threesome - M/M/M, Transformers Plug and Play Sexual Interfacing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-09
Updated: 2020-02-09
Packaged: 2021-02-28 02:26:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,086
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22626295
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rayguntomyhead/pseuds/rayguntomyhead
Summary: “Really, you’d practically have to be underclocked not to accept,” Starscream examined his talons in studied indifference and wow. For a mech with a reputation of being more silver-tongued than a razor-snake he sure wasn’t making a good case. Maybe he let all that pretty make his case for him.“Um, yeah, okay,” Skywarp said, and slurped noisily at his cube of energon. All Starscream’s delicately sharp features creased in annoyance but like, whatever. Skywarp wasn’t the one who’d jaunted up to interruptStarscream’sfueling.
Relationships: Skywarp/Starscream/Thundercracker, Skywarp/Thundercracker
Comments: 26
Kudos: 92





	they say I'm crazy, well, I'm 'bout to go dumb again

**Author's Note:**

> So this is the finished version of a first chapter I posted... oh god, ages ago and then took down because I didn't know where I was going with it and I didn't want it to languish in the land of abandoned fic. Well, I figured out where it was going, so have some Command Trine pre-war shenanigans.

“Really, you’d practically have to be underclocked not to accept,” Starscream examined his talons in studied indifference and wow. For a mech with a reputation of being more silver-tongued than a razor-snake he sure wasn’t making a good case. Maybe he let all that pretty make his case for him.

“Um, yeah, okay,” Skywarp said, and slurped noisily at his cube of energon. All Starscream’s delicately sharp features creased in annoyance but like, whatever. Skywarp wasn’t the one who’d jaunted up to interrupt _Starscream’s_ fueling.

For no good reason too! Skywarp hadn’t even been up to anything at all, no matter what Scoop and Hacker were glitching about now. Fragging suck-ups. Just because they were groundpounding dirtkissers didn’t mean they were better than him. Guess the J.A.A.T. was exactly the same as every other school on Cybertron.

“So you accept?” Starscream said and every panel of his prissy, stuck-up, faceplates looked triumphant.

“Ehhhhh,” Skywarp stuck a servo into his cube, dabbing up the last bits of fuel before sticking it in his mouth. “Naw.”

He sucked his finger clean. Mmm. This was a really good batch. Maybe he should grab a few extra cubes to share with TC later. Primus knows the nerd probably still had his face buried in that weird poetry that was blowing up the ‘net. Like a _loser_.

“Ex-cuse me?” Starscream’s wings hitched up high and offended, every word spit out as precisely as bolts from a rivet gun. Skywarp slumped forward, cradling his chin in his hand and tried to ignore the sharp flare of indignation that snapped against his field.

“I mean, you seem great and all, but y’know…” Skywarp said, and waggled his hand back and forth. Starscream definitely didn’t seem great at all but he was a senator bigwig or something and it was probably better not to slag him off too much.

Really though. Did he actually expect that line to work? All that “you are being deceived” and “accept your true place as a leader” and “oh by the way you should totally overhaul your whole slaggin’ frame to look exactly like me.”

Uh huh. Sure. Skywarp was definitely sparked yesterday.

“Also I have a thing, so I’m just gonna – ” he pushed up off the table and flapped a hand in the general direction of the main academy building. Starscream opened his mouth, clearly intending to keep blabbing on about his stupid recruitment thing all day but Skywarp had places to go and mechs to see so with a last jaunty salute he activated his warp drive.

And yeah, okay, so it probably wasn’t the greatest idea to show off like that but c’mon. That look on Starscream’s pretty arrogant face as he warped out?

Fragging. Priceless.

“You did _what_?!” Thundercracker’s plates fluffed out in agitation, his field churning and storming against Skywarp’s as he yanked his jack out of where it had been very comfortably nestled in Skywarp’s port and ouch. Give a mech a little warning.

Slaggit. Skywarp had just known TC was gonna throw a glitch about that.

Thundercracker struggled to wrestle himself out of Skywarp’s arms, but Skywarp made like a really determined cyber-jellyfish, okay, because Skywarp deserved some cuddling after a ‘face like that. Even if TC’s got his gears in a grind over some stupid stunt flyer and his stupid proposition.

“You do realize that was a slagging senator, ‘Warp?” Thundercracker all but whimpered as he gave up on wrestling himself out of Skywarp’s hold and started banging his helm back against Skywarp shoulder instead.

Like a glitchmouse sometimes. Honestly.

“C’mon TC, what’s the big slagging _deal_ ,” Skywarp pouted, and wrapped a leg more firmly around TC just in case he decided to start wriggling around again. Actually on second thought, maybe that wouldn’t be so bad. After all he could definitely go another round, especially if TC started doing that thing with his tongue and ‘Warp’s port again…

“The big. Slagging. Deal,” Thundercracker said frostily, all his plating clamped down as tight as a blast door, “is that if he got it into his processor he could get us even more blacklisted than we already are. _Even more blacklisted,_ ‘Warp. It’s hard enough to get the professors to see me as more than an odd eclectic with aspirations above his station, okay, adding fuel to the slagheap–”

Thundercracker broke off with a frustrated squeal of his engines. Aw, guess he really was slagged off after all. Skywarp patted his cockpit consolingly and snuggled closer.

“Y’know nothing we do ’s gonna change that,” Skywarp said. “They already had us notched in a slot before we even got sparked.”

And it sucks ports, okay, it does, but that’s how it is. It doesn’t matter how hard TC works, or how hard ‘Warp concentrates on etching within the lines. Even with their outlier abilities, there’s only three things a flier is good for – fightin’ freightin’ and fraggin’ and since they hadn’t gone off to train on how to slag mecha that must mean they were just dragging their thrusters on on joining the supply corps.

Thundercracker mumbled something incomprehensible in a discontented sort of tone, but he didn’t argue. What would he even say? Maybe the first year he could’ve pretended, but not anymore. Not now.

Ughhhhh. But enough processor power spent on that for one day. Why is he even bothering when he has an armful of pliant Thundercracker to play with?

Skywarp slid a hand sneakily down from Thundercracker’s chest to his waist, and then lower until he could tease at the seam of a hip port.

“Heeeeeeey,” Skwarp mouthed at the cabling of Thundercracker’s neck, positioned just perfectly and practically begging Skywarp to nibble at them. “I know something that can take your mind off all that.”

He thumbed at Thundercracker’s port harder, just in case he hadn’t got the picture.

“Honestly ‘Warp,” Thundercracker grumbled, “It’s like you’re only running one line of code in the empty hunk of metal you call a processor,” and yeah, yeah, whatever, ‘cause TC snuggled back, and with a great air of long suffering snicked his port cover away.

Oh _noooooo._ Not again. Skywarp resist the urge to cut right to the end of the _last_ encounter he’d had this “senator” or whatever and make with the warping, which is a grand bit of self-control on his part and Thundercracker will definitely be impressed with him later. 

“Ah, Skywarp,” Starscream says, faceplates arranging themselves into an expression of surprise that as is false as gold-plated tin. “What a coincidence running into to you again so soon.”

Coincidence. Suuuuuure. ‘Cause Skywarp was sparked yesterday. He rocks from one pede to the other. 

Hmm. What would TC say?

“Uhhhh, hi?” Skywarp says. That’s a perfectly nice word and not likely to piss important Senator-types off. “Nice seeing you again, I, uh, was just on my way to…” 

He stalls out, frantically searching his databank for what would constitute an urgent sort of engagement. 

“…class! I’m on my way to class,” Skywarp says proudly. You were supposed to show up on time to classes, that was definitely a thing. 

Starscream gives him a look that says he definitely doesn’t believe that, but he doesn’t challenge him on it thank Primus’ holy ports. Because there’s definitely not a class and Skywarp really wasn’t sure where to take that one if Starscream made like a rotary and tried to drill more details out of him. He starts an awkward electric shuffle to the side, going far far away from this conversation, but Starscream moves in to block him, like a whole jackaft _._ Aw, _c’mon._ He barely comes up to Skywarp’s chin and he _still_ arrogantly radiates a field like he’s got three times more mass. 

“Have you given any more thought to my proposition?” Starscream says, maniacally gleaming red optics boring into Skywarp. Aw scrap, is he gonna _keep_ talking Skywarp’s audial off with that recruitment crap?

“Um, it’s not you it’s me?” Skywarp tries. That’s polite, right? 

“Don’t. You know better, no matter that airhead facade you put on. It’s not _either_ of us,” Starscream says, and his optics flare, burning brighter than lithium flames. “You know as well as I do that those arrogantsyncophants to the Primeare never going to give you the chance you deserve. Never going to see your gifts for what they are, let you shine.” 

Light glints off the polished edge of his ailerons, field dancing and snapping, pulling at the edge of Skywarp’s.

“Don’t think I don’t see it in you. How you want more than what the scraping and the bowing, more than being thrown to the non-existent mercies of the Senate’s war machine,” he leans in close enough Skywarp can practically feel the heat blowing from his vents. “More than spending the rest of your days hauling scrap for mecha who sneer down their nasal ridges at you while building their fortunes off your wings.”

Huh. Skywarp’s chassis twinges with a sudden ache, like someone’s slugged him right in the sensitive seam below his cockpit. He rubs it blankly. Weird. 

“You,” Starscream says, “are _better_ that that,” says it like he’s laying down the laws of gravity and _frag_ Thundercracker’s gonna be so mad at him but he needs to go, needs to blow this copper-popsicle joint _,_ and in a sparkbeat the world twists, Starscream’s frowning face blinking out in an comforting contraction of warp space.

“Hey, TC,” Skywarp says, staring down the latest hysterics of Silkblossom on the viewscreen as she rails at her cheating paramour. He’s scrunched on their sagging couch, arms wrapped around the joint of his knees and wings drooped over the back that’s so scuffed it’s more copper than silver-colored. Thundercracker shuts the door behind him, starts to murmur an absent-minded hello before he does a double take and sets his shopping bag down on the counter. 

“Skywarp? What’s wrong?” he says, turning abruptly and making straight for the couch. “Did something happen? If it was Hacker again I swear to Primus–“ 

“Wasn’t Hacker,” Skywarp mumbles, hugs his knees tighter and doesn’t take his optics off the screen. “Wasn’t nothing.” 

Thundercracker gives him the most unimpressed look to ever unimpress and sits himself down gently on the space next to Skywarp. 

“C’mon Warp,” he says, slinging an arm over the rigid line of Skywarp’s shoulders, tugging him closer in an uncooperative block of mech. “Don’t give me that. What happened?” 

“Nothin’,” Skywarp says sullenly, buries his face in the crook of Thundercracker’s neck. It being conveniently there and all. Thundercracker knows all his weaknesses though, the slagger, and starts tracing his digit delicately down the seam where Skywarp’s helm met his faceplate. 

“C’mere, starlight,” Thundercracker croons in Skywarp’s audial, sending pleasant vibrations shivering through him. “It’ll be okay.” 

Except– except– it _won’t_ be. Starscream was _right_ Pitsdamn him. It is how it is, and it’s always going to be that way, and eventually Skywarp’s gonna piss off the wrong person and they’re gonna kick him out of J.A.A.T. and of course TC being the soft-sparked idiot he was would drop out with him, and then where would they be? Stuck hauling some snotty tin-plate grounder’s goods, endless monotony, cycle after cycle after cycle until they deactivated and he didn’t– he couldn’t– 

“Shu, shu, c’mon, invent for me, one-two-three, out-two-three,” Thundercracker pulls him in tighter, wrapping him in strong arms and keeping up the gentle, rhythmic, stroking of his helm. “You’re gonna overheat sweetspark, just keep venting for me, okay?” 

Oh. That’s what that angry red light on his HUD meant. He shutters his optics, dulls his sensors until they’re filled with nothing but Thundercracker and his copper-smooth voice and his hands and the soft, warm pulse of his field as it wraps around Skywarp, weaving deep into his’til it feels like no one will ever be able to pull them apart.

“Saw Starscream again,” he mumbles into Thundercracker’s neck cabling. 

Thundercracker stiffens. “Did _he_ do this, oh no, Senator or no Senator–“

Aw, TC! Skywarp uncrunches his legs enough to flop them over Thundercracker’s just to make sure he isn’t getting any ideas about going anywhere and hugs the squishy feeling he’s getting thinking about TC being willing to take on some precious bigshot Senator for _him._

“’S not his fault, not really,” Skywarp says. “He’s still trying to get us to join his big revolution or whatever.” 

“ _Revolution?”_ Thundercracker practically shrieks and okay, not the important part of that sentence here. 

“He wants us to be _leaders,_ TC,” Skywarp says. “With him. Upgrade our frames like him and everything. Be better.” 

Thundercracker stiffens even more. So highstrung, honestly, Skywarp should splurge on a good oil massage for him, try and get him to relax for once. Once he has some shanix. Everyone had bad luck in the betting rings _sometimes,_ he’d make it back soon. 

“Like– like–“ Thundercracker’s vocalizer’s gone up practically an octave, “like _trine?_ ”

Huh. Skywarp stops nuzzling at Thundercracker’s neck to process that. Y’know, Starscream hadn’t actually _said_ the ’T’ word, but it’d make sense. You didn’t overhaul your whole slagging’ _frame_ unless it was really honest to Primus serious. 

“Probably,” Skywarp says, and oo, he’d forgot Thundercracker had a port tucked back right here. It gleams at him invitingly, and so of course he has to stroke it, teasing the tip of a claw into the delicate seam. 

“‘Warp, _focus,_ ” Thundercracker says, and Skywarp is! Focusing on the coy beckoning of Thundercracker’s port. 

“No focus, ‘facing,” Skywarp says, twisting back just enough he can pout coyly at Thundercracker’s irritated face. That’ll be the perfect activity to take his processor off all this ridiculous _feelings_ and _thinking about things_ business it’s wanting to wallow in.

“This is serious, ‘Warp,” Thundercracker says, and ugh of course it’s serious, _everything_ is serious with Thundercracker - that’s what he needs Skywarp for. 

“If it’s so serious how about _you_ talk to him about it?” Skywarp says, craning forward to mouth at the base of Thundercracker’s neck, tease his glossa over Thundercracker’s port. “Except later.” 

“F-fine,” Thundercracker says, slumping back down as he gives in to Skywarp’s expert seduction techniques. “Later,” and he leans into ‘Warp’s touch like he can’t help himself and hah! Score another one for Skywarp. 

“But I mean it,” Thundercracker says, letting Skywarp nudge him down the couch and onto his back, splayed out like a tasty tray of energon goodies and aw yeah Skywarp’s gonna eat him alllll up. “Tomorrow. We’re _both_ talking to him,” Thundercracker says vocalizer colored with static and field pulsing more squishy feelings and then Skywarp gets his cover open and licks his glossa inside and Thundercracker moans and after that doesn’t say anything else besides jumbled variations on Skywarp’s name and _yes_.

“Skywarp tells me that you have a proposal for us,” Thundercracker says, squared off in the same way he does when he’s explaining to one of Skywarp’s professors bur the jillionth time how it was not actually Skywarp’s fault and if it was really expulsion was an overreaction, don’t you think? Skywarp slouches just close enough that he can snag TC in the case of an emergency warp, but not quite so close that Starscream thinks he’s going to be part of this conversation.

Starscream studies Thundercracker narrowly. 

“I do,” he says. “Do excuse me. I hadn’t realized you two were so… close. Or I would have approached you as a pair.” 

Thundercracker’s posture unstiffens just a smidge. 

“We don’t advertise it,” he says. “But now you know. Wherever Skywarp goes, I go too. And vice versa.” 

Starscream tilts his head in acknowledgment, still gazing through them with the narrow, piercing gaze in those pretty red optics that gives Skywarp the sort of jitters that make him want to explode something and then zoom the frag away in the chaos. 

“Then you understand what I’m offering,” Starscream says. “The possibilities.” 

“I’m not convinced it _is_ a possibility,” Thundercracker says. “

“Nothing limits achievement like small thinking; nothing expands possibilities like unleashed imagination,” Starscream says, in this weird formal tone like he’s quoting something – what it is Skywarp doesn’t have the first clue but clearly TC does because he stills, studying Starscream for a long moment. 

“I have class in a half joor,” Thundercracker says, “but I’ll hear what you have to say. The crystal gardens, tonight?” 

Starscream makes a politely disdainful buzz of static and shifts his weight so he can cock one curvy hip out.

“I’m sure you understand the delicacy of the situation,” he says. “Never know who might be faffing around, and it only takes one blabbing vocalizer…” 

Wow. Paranoid, much? Like he hadn’t spoken to Skywarp right out in the Pitsdamn open the first time. 

“Okay, Screamer,” Skywarp says, rolling optics and hah! He’s so clever, he should pat himself on the back for that one. Starscream doesn’t seem to appreciate his genius, and sneers opening his mouth to snap something back except Thundercracker lifts a hands, moving his frame the two of them.

“Fine,” he says in a tone that says it is not in fact fine. “Where do _you_ suggest?” 

Starscream looks supremely smug. “I have a lovely apartment in Iacon, and a lovely selection of engex if you would care to discuss it over a drink.”

Iacon?? Yeah _right_. 

“Um, yeah, no,” Skywarp says. “That’s like, _so far_.”

“What Skywarp means to say,” Thundercracker says, “is we have an early morning tomorrow. If you’re that set on having this conversation in private you’re welcome to come to our habsuite. Certainly if you’re wanting to propose the sort of relationship I think you’re proposing .” 

Hah. Tell ‘em TC. If Starscream want to do this thing, _he_ can fly his happy aft over. For one microklik some sort of confused expression flits across Starscreams faceplates, before he arranges it back into the smarmy one it had before.

“Fine,” he says stiffly. “Tonight then.” 

And without a single field pulse or gesture of goodbye he spins on one delicately pointed heel and flounces off back to wherever the pit he came from. Thundercracker doesn’t seem so much offended though as… thoughtful. Like the look he gets when he’s plotting something. And there’s something almost– smouldery, underneath that, like the face he gets when he’s not only plotting something the something he’s plotting is going to end in a limp heap of happy overheated Skywarp.

Hmmm. Maybe tonight won’t be so bad after all.

Y’know, Starscream is like, fifty thousand percent less annoying like this, plating trembling and edged with condensation, pinned between them and moaning out their names like a curse and a prayer between panting vents with a vocalizer that suddenly seems a whole lot less grating. 

If Skywarp had known that inviting Starscream over to talk would lead to _this_ he would have been a whooole lot more enthusiastic about the idea. And after all that bluff, he had flown his happy aft over. And then he and Thundercracker had got to talking about this Megatron fellow that Starscream was working for and all that same ‘rise up in revolution over the Functionist dystopia’ slag he’d been droning on at Skywarp about. 

Which was great and all, he supposes. It’s certainly better than the way Cybertron chugs along now, leaving the warbuilds and the Seekers and the disposables buried deep in the crusts, drudging for the mecha above, living and dying in the dark. Starscream had been right about _that,_ even if he had picked the stupidest way to try and recruit them into joining this ‘Decepticon’ thing.

What wasn’t stupid was the look on Starscream’s face as Thundercracker traced his lips,the same delicately teasing way he touched Skywarp and mmm. Skywarp warms with a vicious sort of glee seeing that sort of look on someone not him. 

“I didn’t– this wasn’t– this wasn’t what I meant. I’m supposed to be convincing you…” Starscream says faintly, trailing off with a shiver as Thundercracker presses down against the plush his bottom lip, pulling his mouth open. Frag but he’s gorgeous pinned tight and trembling, just _begging_ to be fragged. 

“Oh, I’m feeling pretty convinced right now,” Thundercracker rumbles, in that dark gravely voice of his that always does _things_ to Skywarp's insides. Thundercracker traces his hand down Starscream’s neck, the delicate frosted glass of his cockpit, following the seam to Starscream’s hip port. 

“I– I–“ Starscream chokes, pushes helplessly up into Thundercracker’s hand. And Skywarp can’t let Thundercracker have _all_ the fun, so he snugs his arm a little more firmly around Starscream’s waist, licks at the sensitive vents of Starscream’s helm, palms down Starscream’s side to thumb at his other port. 

This was _much_ better than spending the whole night debating _politics_. Ugh. Or the _sanctity of the trine bond_ and _not going to bond you if it’s just political_ and of course Starscream was all like _why not_ because he clearly didn’t understand one single sickenly romantic byte of Thundercracker’s processor. And then he just had to compound it by waving his hand all dismissive because _what’s the big deal about it_ anyway here they were. 

“ _This_ is what it means to be trine,” Thundercracker says, optics going dark and smoulder-y. “Sharing _everything._ Living space. Energon. Sparks.” 

Starscream makes a shriek like an overboiled tea kettle. “Sparks?! When did _sparks_ become part of the–“ he chokes off as Thundercracker brings his other hand up to massage at Starscream’s chassis, right over where his spark chamber is tucked behind layers of aerodynamic armor. 

“Sparks,” Thundercracker says firm, not letting up with that hot-as-frag massage or with teasing at Starscream’s hip port. “Gonna let us in, Star?” 

Oo, that’s a good nickname. Obviously not as good as Screamer, but still pretty good.

Starscream just hangs there between them, bursts of static escaping his vocalizer like he can’t figure out how to just say the obvious _yes_ he wants to say, because who can resist Thundercracker when he gets all dominant like that _?_ He barely ever takes the lead but when he does… hot _damn._ Hook Skywarp up and fry him like a frayed circuit.

Thundercracker slowly flicks his cable cover open, fingers the tip of his jack and drags the thick, gleaming length of it out, inch, by inch, and Starscream’s optics are riveted to it like he can’t look away for the life of him but that’s okay because Skywarp can’t either. 

“You want us? Wanna see what it could be like?” Thundercracker says, and Starscream finally _breaks,_ you can see the moment it happens in the slump of his frame and kudos to his willpower because Skywarp would have given in waaaay sooner. 

“Please, dammit, _yes,”_ Starscream says. “ _Give_ it to me, stop teasing me, you–“ and then Thundercracker’s jack sinks into him, everything that’s Thundercracker sinking into Starscream. Starscream’s optics spiral open as wide as they can go, practically going white and frag, the _sound_ he makes. 

“That’s it, Star, let me in,” TC breathes against the hidden port of Starscream’s neck, sending vibrations through delicate, hidden prongs. And of course Starscream shakes his head back and forth just the smallest bit like the contrary slagger he is, but his motor routines are clearly running on automatic – it only take another klik before he shudders all over, head thunking to TC’s shoulder and optics shuttering with a broken little noise of surrender 

“‘Warp,” Thundercracker grits, optics flickering manic, “C’mon, take him, jack in. Hewants it. Should hear him, all needing and desperate to have us both inside. Not gonna make us wait, are you?”

Which, way to make Skywarp’s spark go all hot and fluttery. He flares eager acceptance at the both of them just so they’re clear how absolutely onboard he is with this whole plan and yanks his jack out so fast it almost stings. This is gonna be _amazing._

And Skywarp’s still not entirely sure how they got here, but damn if he isn’t here for it now. So maybe Starscream’s a little screechy and even more a little condescending, but he’s not an idiot and fragging hot as smelters. More than that _he’s_ not settling for fighting and freighting for the rest of his life, and y’know… maybe this whole rebellion thing might even work. Maybe someday Skywarp won’t have to put up with dirtkissers like Scoop and Hacker, might end up following Starscream into something _awesome._

What the hell, y’know? 

**Author's Note:**

> comments and kudos are like chicken soup for the writer's soul, thanks to everyone who leaves one! <3


End file.
